@ IM: Being able to map the brain is only the first step in being able to understand it.... Being able to closely duplicate the internal workings of one brain to another would be the next step in understanding someone else's thoughts and feelings. I am not suggesting that one can look at the squiggles on a chart and know this information, or merely look at someone else's mind movie. I am suggesting that another person can be made to experience something very close to what you experience, and that it can deepen the understanding of the experience by allowing it to be examined in detail by more than one person. It makes perfect sense that as one could study shared experiences more and more, a more detailed understanding of psychology and experience would come to light. That is my point. You suggest that this knowledge could not develop at all?

As to your comment on internal reflection: Internal reflection within the same brain is not hard to understand. It's self-reflection. For instance, in a dream, your brain triggers images to appear on your optic regions, which are then interpreted by other parts of your brain, which trigger other memories, emotions and associations ... which cause images to appear on your optic regions... etc.

The "hard" problem is only "hard" because right now we have no way to peer in and experience those things in other people, and to analyze those experiences. If a way were to be found to peer in and examine it more directly, by definition it would not be that hard. Are you saying that just because it is said that they are "hard" now, these problems are forever hard? Are you saying that something hard cannot be more soluble, or perhaps later, with better observation and replication, be found to be made of of easier, more digestible bits of knowledge? Is that your suggestion?

What are blueberry pancakes? Their smell (olfactory), their texture while chewing (haptic, motor, time-based factors), the feeling of being awake in the morning (wakefulness, hormonal state), the clank of silverware on plates (audio), your heart rate at the time (and other homeostatic functions), emotional state at the time, your sense of hunger (digestive) ... and whatever other body functions, nervous states and experiences were memorized when you had blueberry pancakes. Right now, you cannot make me experience what you experience, but that does not mean that the information for these memories is not in your brain, and it does not mean that this kind of data will forever be ineffable or forever inaccessible. The data are there, the trick is capturing and interpreting those data points correctly. Do you disagree that the data and interconnections for memory and experience are stored in your brain and nervous system? If they are not, where do you suggest they are stored?

That's all that your blueberry pancake memories are, that is all that the mind of the person behind Immediocracy is: data stored in an electrochemical format in a brain.

And, yes, I suspect that the more difficult parts of experience and cognition are composed of the "easier" parts of brain and nervous functions. I think that both the hard and easy qualia are enormously difficult to deeply understand, but I do not think it is impossible to do so.

No. The double slit experiment shows both wave and particle nature. The interference pattern you see is caused by the wave nature, but the actual energy transfer to the screen always occurs in discrete quanta as would be expected from particles.

Both the wave and particle natures of light are inferred and are dependent upon light being able to 'know' whether there is one slit or more than one. It's also dependent upon the physical possibility of something to exist with both a particle and wave nature. I don't think that it necessarily is, and I think that particles and waves may be ontologically distinct - as a square and circle aren't conceivable as the same thing. In my model, it's the materials which are cooperating with each other in synchronized imitation, not photons making FTL decisions.

he interference pattern is not only between the excited material used as a light source (A), the plate (B), the screen (C), but the materials used for measurement (M) and observation (O). (If the experiment is not performed in a vacuum, then you've got additional gaseous matter and dissolved particulates(. Each material at ABCM, and O independently express the behavior of the stimulation of A in different ways yet in coincidence with each other, according to the specifics of their material nature and spatial relation to each other.

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Assume A and B are one light-second apart. Assume C is one light-second from A in the opposite direction. we measure A becoming A-. Why are B and C never inspired to show effects from the same event? Clearly they can't communicate across a two light-second gap in one second. You say thatthey don't communicate, but they just "know". That doesn't fix the problem. How do they "know" faster than the speed of light?

They don't just 'know', they experience, they embody the message (which is itself an embodied experience). It's not enough to just represent the quality of the excitation - the text, it also has to represent the context - the relative location of the observer-participants to each other. It's essential entanglement. Matter is one thing at the Big Bang - a singularity. Existentially that singularity appears interrupted by time and space to us, because we ourselves are an interference pattern of matter and timespace. We can't be objective about it. From the perspective of matter however, timespace is just an emptiness it uses to partition itself existentially, but essentially, all there is is the Big Bang.

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Lets assume for a second that all particles know about events effecting every other particle and there is no speed limit to this knowledge. Why do we need to wait a full second for shared or inspired events to cause an effect at either B or C?

I wouldn't say that all particles know about all particles, but that they are all able to share behaviors amongst themselves. The latency is due to the need to holographically recapitulate the circumstances of the relation. Distance A, B, and C is not physically traveled, but it is respected in the form of time. When you scale up the size of the observer, the delay shrinks. If you're the size of a star, the length of time it takes a laser on the moon to reach a person's eye on the Earth likely seems instantaneous. I talked about the latency explanations earlier in the thread I think.

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Why is the speed of this knowledge sometimes limited to light speed and other times practically unlimited? What in nature shows these effects?

There's no knowledge and there's no speed, there's just behaviors of material objects on different scales and how the relations between them are reflected in those behaviors.

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If properties are not dependent on the electron structure, why does the Schrödinger equation only predict the Hydrogen spectral series when the electron structure is considered? Can your model predict that without electromagnetism? I'd love to see the math on that one.

No I'm not saying that electron behavior isn't a primary factor, but we call 79 protons gold regardless of how heavy or light of a gold ion it is. Electrons...I guess...exist? I'm inclined to give particles with mass the benefit of the doubt but who knows, maybe electrons and charge are just another behavior of atoms? Maybe the evidence of their effects comes into being when summoned just like photons?

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"That which we call reality arises in the last analysis from the posing of yes–no questions and the registering of equipment-evoked responses; in short, that all things physical are information-theoretic in origin and that this is a participatory universe."- John Archibald Wheeler

It makes perfect sense that as one could study shared experiences more and more, a more detailed understanding of psychology and experience would come to light. That is my point. You suggest that this knowledge could not develop at all?

No, I agree completely. I've thought about it since I was a little kid. Bring on the Neuro IPod. What I'm saying isn't possible to develop is awareness being generated mathematically. Not in another person's brain, but on it's own. Math alone can't ever come to life.

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As to your comment on internal reflection: Internal reflection within the same brain is not hard to understand. It's self-reflection. For instance, in a dream, your brain triggers images to appear on your optic regions, which are then interpreted by other parts of your brain, which trigger other memories, emotions and associations ... which cause images to appear on your optic regions... etc.

You're using 'self', 'you', and 'your' to try to disprove that there is a such thing as a self, you, or your anything. How do these billions of discrete cells translate automatic chemical processes a coherent internal experience of fantastic depth and aesthetic richness which perceives itself as a living entity of freewill and voluntary control?

Think of the internet with no users. No screen, no mouse, no keyboard. The computers are still humming along, but the internet does the internet really exist? It may as well just be wires plugged into plastic doing nothing. It has no function. The whole internet is just a medium for human consciousness to interact with itself. The brain is the same thing. Just as the internet shapes the qualities of the communication going through it, the human form, including the brain, shapes the qualities of the awareness present in it.

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The "hard" problem is only "hard" because right now we have no way to peer in and experience those things in other people, and to analyze those experiences.

Being able to NeuroSCSI into another person's brain doesn't make the hard problem any less hard. We still don't know why we feel like a 'who' in a life of 'why' rather than a process of 'what' in a universe of 'how'. The essential mystery of consciousness is not affected at all by the degree of our ability to share it.

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If a way were to be found to peer in and examine it more directly, by definition it would not be that hard. Are you saying that just because it is said that they are "hard" now, these problems are forever hard? Are you saying that something hard cannot be more soluble, or perhaps later, with better observation and replication, be found to be made of of easier, more digestible bits of knowledge? Is that your suggestion?

It's only hard if you insist that the answers to your question take a certain form. The answer to who you are and why your life is the way it is are very straightforward when approached with common sense. We feel things because that's what life is. That's how the cosmos works. It becomes hard only when you try to force an interior, essential reality into an existential, exterior theory. It doesn't work. There's no number that equals the feeling of pain, yet most any living creature knows what pain is.

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What are blueberry pancakes? Their smell (olfactory), their texture while chewing (haptic, motor, time-based factors), the feeling of being awake in the morning (wakefulness, hormonal state), the clank of silverware on plates (audio), your heart rate at the time (and other homeostatic functions), emotional state at the time, your sense of hunger (digestive) ... and whatever other body functions, nervous states and experiences were memorized when you had blueberry pancakes.

Those are analytical deconstructions and associations with the concept of blueberry pancakes. Another way to look at blueberry pancakes is that it's an English language phrase which evokes a gestalt constellation of iconic identity. A five year old can appreciate blueberry pancakes without any scientific knowledge at all. Pancakes aren't just a somatic procedure, they are a human experience. You can build an aluminum dinosaur with customized actuators and sensors to simulate olfactory detection, mechanical chewing, hunger-like algorithms...you can program the thing to say 'Yum, pancakes goood', but the dinosaur isn't experiencing anything, let alone pancakes.

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Do you disagree that the data and interconnections for memory and experience are stored in your brain and nervous system? If they are not, where do you suggest they are stored?

No, I agree. I think that the brain is the local container for data and interconnections for memory and experience - but it's the inside of the brain, not the exterior behavior of cells that is what we perceive. Not the semiconductors and hard disk sectors - they organize our access to memory and experience, but they are not the same thing as consciousness.

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That's all that your blueberry pancake memories are, that is all that the mind of the person behind Immediocracy is: data stored in an electrochemical format in a brain.

Of course. By the same token, all that electrochemical brain formats are is experiences and memories made physical. Every peptide and ganglion carrying the sights and sounds of a lifetime, from all it's sublime spectacles to it's mortal brutality...all right there inside and between nests of organic molecules.

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I think that both the hard and easy qualia are enormously difficult to deeply understand, but I do not think it is impossible to do so.

Qualia is easy to understand. Water is wet. Beauty is beautiful. What I think is impossible is expressing qualia quantitatively independent of living consciousness.

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"That which we call reality arises in the last analysis from the posing of yes–no questions and the registering of equipment-evoked responses; in short, that all things physical are information-theoretic in origin and that this is a participatory universe."- John Archibald Wheeler

I wouldn't say that all particles know about all particles, but that they are all able to share behaviors amongst themselves. The latency is due to the need to holographically recapitulate the circumstances of the relation. Distance A, B, and C is not physically traveled, but it is respected in the form of time. When you scale up the size of the observer, the delay shrinks. If you're the size of a star, the length of time it takes a laser on the moon to reach a person's eye on the Earth likely seems instantaneous.

My troll spotting radar must be failing me. Before reading that I thought the oddswere pretty good that you were serious. It's too bad, I was having fun crank-baiting.

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If we are honest—and scientists have to be—we must admit that religion is a jumble of false assertions, with no basis in reality. — Paul Dirac

As to your comment on internal reflection: Internal reflection within the same brain is not hard to understand. It's self-reflection. For instance, in a dream, your brain triggers images to appear on your optic regions, which are then interpreted by other parts of your brain, which trigger other memories, emotions and associations ... which cause images to appear on your optic regions... etc.

You're using 'self', 'you', and 'your' to try to disprove that there is a such thing as a self, you, or your anything. How do these billions of discrete cells translate automatic chemical processes a coherent internal experience of fantastic depth and aesthetic richness which perceives itself as a living entity of freewill and voluntary control?...

I am not trying to disprove anything, least of all that there is a "me" that I perceive.

We don't yet know how these cells do their trick. Once we can peer at them doing their work, and replicate it, and even better, experience other's in action, we are closer to understanding it.

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The "hard" problem is only "hard" because right now we have no way to peer in and experience those things in other people, and to analyze those experiences.

Being able to NeuroSCSI into another person's brain doesn't make the hard problem any less hard. We still don't know why we feel like a 'who' in a life of 'why' rather than a process of 'what' in a universe of 'how'. The essential mystery of consciousness is not affected at all by the degree of our ability to share it.

There is no big deal to it. We understand a hell of a lot through sharing our experiences and our information. I presented a way to actually be able to partake in another person's experience of life, to record it, to review it. Being able to "be there" when a person goes into deep sleep, then wakes again... or be anesthetised... or any other number of "losing, then regaining" consciousness experiments, would absolutely be illuminating.

But, once again we circle back to religion. In stating, "The essential mystery of consciousness is not affected at all by the degree of our ability to share it," there is a need to hold on to a mystery, yet you have not described any particular reason why even being able to share someone else's experience directly (if you could) and delve deeply into the inner workings of a mind would not lead to any insight on the matter. Fine, the mystery is poetic. But, your statement is religious in its nature. Only religion would need to keep a mystery, and deny that it ever could be exposed. All you've said is (essentially), "it is the hard problem." You have given no good reason why it cannot ever be illuminated.

Ok, fine. I leave you to your mystery.

I have seen that sharing experiences brings knowledge and human understanding, and that further study (in any field) produces further insight. So, I do think that if it were possible to delve into another's thoughts and experiences, and experience them ourselves, replay them, ask questions about them, this would definitely accelerate the understanding of much of the problems presented in qualia theories. I seriously don't think that "the essential mystery of consciousness" is necessarily forever a mystery. It is a problem that science can answer.

We don't yet know how these cells do their trick. Once we can peer at them doing their work, and replicate it, and even better, experience other's in action, we are closer to understanding it.

We're not just a complicated how, we're also a simple or iconic who. They're different ontological perspectives that are mutually exclusive (existentially different, essentially they are the same thing).

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There is no big deal to it.

There's no big deal to a square circle either - it just doesn't work, for obvious reasons.

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We understand a hell of a lot through sharing our experiences and our information. I presented a way to actually be able to partake in another person's experience of life, to record it, to review it. Being able to "be there" when a person goes into deep sleep, then wakes again... or be anesthetised... or any other number of "losing, then regaining" consciousness experiments, would absolutely be illuminating.

I agree. Co-subjectivity absolutely is illuminating. Conjoined twins experience this to different degrees. It still won't let us access awareness with calculation, just awareness with awareness.

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But, once again we circle back to religion. In stating, "The essential mystery of consciousness is not affected at all by the degree of our ability to share it," there is a need to hold on to a mystery, yet you have not described any particular reason why even being able to share someone else's experience directly (if you could) and delve deeply into the inner workings of a mind would not lead to any insight on the matter.

You're right, it would undoubtedly lead to great insights about consciousness, but when I say the 'essential mystery of consciousness' I'm talking about the specific aspect of consciousness that makes it different from everything else - the quality of subjective presence. Not saying there's anything magical about it, just that it isn't knowable through objective means (just as experimental validation of chemistry isn't knowable only through subjective means).

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Fine, the mystery is poetic. But, your statement is religious in its nature. Only religion would need to keep a mystery, and deny that it ever could be exposed. All you've said is (essentially), "it is the hard problem." You have given no good reason why it cannot ever be illuminated.

It already is illuminated, but subjectively, in it's own terms - the who's and why's of first hand experience. It's not always poetic, it can be miserable or boring or whatever too, but it's never going to be fully represented by nothing but a line of code.

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I have seen that sharing experiences brings knowledge and human understanding, and that further study (in any field) produces further insight. So, I do think that if it were possible to delve into another's thoughts and experiences, and experience them ourselves, replay them, ask questions about them, this would definitely accelerate the understanding of much of the problems presented in qualia theories.

Yes, I definitely agree. I wasn't trying to say sharing experiences is a waste of time.

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I seriously don't think that "the essential mystery of consciousness" is necessarily forever a mystery. It is a problem that science can answer.

Science can answer them, just not in 17th century billiard ball objective terms. Consciousness isn't like that. When I say that the essential mystery of consciousness is not accessible objectively, I just mean that there is no substitute for objective experience, and that likely, there cannot be. Science itself has to expand to approach subjectivity.

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"That which we call reality arises in the last analysis from the posing of yes–no questions and the registering of equipment-evoked responses; in short, that all things physical are information-theoretic in origin and that this is a participatory universe."- John Archibald Wheeler

So, then, there is no need for impenetrable "mystery" in this subject is there? Nor is this something that science cannot understand, is it?

The human experience is both effable and parseable, isn't it? Difficult, maybe, with current tools and limitations, but not beyond scientific understanding.

It depends what you consider scientific understanding. The human experience is both effable and parseable to humans - but it doesn't translate into non-experience as objective phenomena does. If you approach human consciousness as an epiphenomena of cellular activity then I think it will forever be an impenetrable mystery. If we approach cellular activity as the exterior of human consciousness then I think we're on the right track. Do you see what I'm getting at? It's not consciousness that needs to be explained in terms of cellular activity, it's both sides that need to be understood as essentially the same but existentially very different.

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"That which we call reality arises in the last analysis from the posing of yes–no questions and the registering of equipment-evoked responses; in short, that all things physical are information-theoretic in origin and that this is a participatory universe."- John Archibald Wheeler

My troll spotting radar must be failing me. Before reading that I thought the oddswere pretty good that you were serious. It's too bad, I was having fun crank-baiting.

I'm just trying to put a complex idea into words. The point is that what we measure as latency in light over vast distances is a reflection of the size and scale of the observer - not necessarily of a projectile having to fly through a vacuum.

When I think about photons having to be physically shot out of atoms to then be intercepted by other atoms, it seems a lot more ridiculous than what I was trying to say about the holographic nature of events. When a (straight) guy sees a super attractive woman, does he think 'Wow, her configuration of photons are so irresistible'. There's just too much about images that make a lot more sense when we consider the possibility that what we are seeing is not photons but a literal representation of that person's body and face. Our brain physically shares the experience of the presence of that person (or the experience of a photographer's camera's experience) through a process of harmonic imitation. We feel connected to that person, not to a torrent of colliding infinitesimals.

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"That which we call reality arises in the last analysis from the posing of yes–no questions and the registering of equipment-evoked responses; in short, that all things physical are information-theoretic in origin and that this is a participatory universe."- John Archibald Wheeler

^ That is more a product of the way our senses evolved to deal with our medium-sized world. Perceiving a ferocious lion jumping at you is of more survival value than perceiving the lion, a harmless antelope, and the trees and grass as various similar configurations of carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen and oxygen atoms.

And yet, we are in fact atoms.

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I stopped believing for a little while this morning. Journey is gonna be so pissed when they find out...

So, then, there is no need for impenetrable "mystery" in this subject is there? Nor is this something that science cannot understand, is it?

The human experience is both effable and parseable, isn't it? Difficult, maybe, with current tools and limitations, but not beyond scientific understanding.

It depends what you consider scientific understanding. The human experience is both effable and parseable to humans - but it doesn't translate into non-experience as objective phenomena does. If you approach human consciousness as an epiphenomena of cellular activity then I think it will forever be an impenetrable mystery. If we approach cellular activity as the exterior of human consciousness then I think we're on the right track. Do you see what I'm getting at? It's not consciousness that needs to be explained in terms of cellular activity, it's both sides that need to be understood as essentially the same but existentially very different.

Well, right now it can be shown in not only the "cellular approach" way, and that might be a limited view, but there it is. I have laid out a hypothetical situation which shows that it could be understood in a much more thorough way, one person (or many) directly experiencing what another may experience. This not only exposes the "hard math" but also would expose the experience of it. This would not only explain what music and a symphony is (the "math" end of it) but would also be able to invite people to participate and "to enjoy the music" as well.

Is there any better way to bring about understanding of such a subject? How better to learn about a person's experiences that to actually experience them yourself?

So if this is the background of my conversation with you, and I have put this all down in detail, you write:

Perceiving a ferocious lion jumping at you is of more survival value than perceiving the lion, a harmless antelope, and the trees and grass as various similar configurations of carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen and oxygen atoms.

If the configurations of atoms are dissimilar enough for our senses (made of atoms) to be able to present them to 'us' (also atoms) so differently, then they are already perceiving them adequately to tell them apart. It would actually be much faster and more direct to perceive the lion's molecules pouncing rather than have to paint a spectacular mythic/iconic 3D technicolor representation first. There is no mechanical purpose to our being able to perceive anything subjectively. Evolved automatic reflexes would be likely be much more efficient for survival.

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And yet, we are in fact atoms.

That's what I'm saying too, but also that atoms are in fact us.

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"That which we call reality arises in the last analysis from the posing of yes–no questions and the registering of equipment-evoked responses; in short, that all things physical are information-theoretic in origin and that this is a participatory universe."- John Archibald Wheeler

I've agreed that 'your' idea of being able to share consciousness (a timeworn SF concept, a la Dreamscape, Brainstorm, The Matrix, Inception, etc, that I've thought about since I was probably seven years old) would be the holy grail for consciousness research. What I keep reiterating and you keep ignoring is that this doesn't get you one iota closer to being able to reduce subjectivity nothing but an objective process.

You can move subjective experience from person to person, you could grow a larger brain to host more than one person in a body, but you're always going to have cells on the outside and experiences on the inside - because that's the reality of the situation. Music can be digitized and analyzed, put into any number of mathematical forms but it's not music until someone listens to it as music. You can record patterns in the human nervous system and reproduce them, but without a human nervous system to experience them fully rendered, they are just dead data.

You may not be able to see it that way, and many people cannot, but I can see it both ways and think that this integrated way of approaching it is an improvement.

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"That which we call reality arises in the last analysis from the posing of yes–no questions and the registering of equipment-evoked responses; in short, that all things physical are information-theoretic in origin and that this is a participatory universe."- John Archibald Wheeler

More of my useless babbling or the words of Quantum Physicist David Bohm Physics Professor Basil Hiley?

"The world is basically organic and the mechanistic part is just an aspect of the deeper organic part, that's not denying mechanism, it's putting mechanism in it's place, and not making mechanism and reductionism drive you."

"There is no difference between physics and biology, fundamentally"

"Maybe even the electron has a proto-consciousness?".

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wayQn0uVIvE[/youtube]

Pfft. hallucinations from a crank.

EDIT: Sorry, Good call Penkie. Not Bohm but a Physics professor in a YouTube with a David Bohm Title on it.

Still, adequate to suggest that perhaps I'm not alone or in bad company when I say that reductionism needs to be tempered and that sense may be fundamental on all levels of matter.

« Last Edit: August 03, 2010, 10:57:12 AM by Immediacracy »

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"That which we call reality arises in the last analysis from the posing of yes–no questions and the registering of equipment-evoked responses; in short, that all things physical are information-theoretic in origin and that this is a participatory universe."- John Archibald Wheeler

Also, even though Bohm was a great name in quantum physics and relativity and his ideas where excepted by many doesn't make that his theory in neuropsychology are automatically as brilliant and true by default. They might, but I don't know. I don't even know his precise views, but maybe you can explain us.

Also, according to Wikipedia, Bohm was having great depressions and treated with electroconvulsive therapy, which doesn't indicate that his mind was healthy in every respect.

Similarly, Einstein's believe in a deterministic underlying world, Newton's believe in Alchemy and God and Plato's believe in Zeus are not automatically brilliant. Every idea is inspected by the scientific community with similar rigor.

In other words, there is no valid argument from authority in science.

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"Technological progress is like an axe in the hands of a pathological criminal."

Also, even though Bohm was a great name in quantum physics and relativity and his ideas where excepted by many doesn't make that his theory in neuropsychology are automatically as brilliant and true by default. They might, but I don't know. I don't even know his precise views, but maybe you can explain us.

Thanks for spotting that. I hadn't seem him older before and didn't question the title.

Read his Wiki or his books if you want to know about his ideas. He covers a lot of similar territory as I do: dismissing reductionism in favor of ontological holism, a common ground for consciousness and matter, holographic implicate order, etc.

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Also, according to Wikipedia, Bohm was having great depressions and treated with electroconvulsive therapy, which doesn't indicate that his mind was healthy in every respect.

It doesn't mean anything one way or another as far as his ideas or work are concerned. If you have serious misfortune in your life of some kind, it depression would be a sign that the mind is in fact healthy in every respect. The fact that you pull that one element out to discredit an entire view of physics shows me that the only truth that you are interested is the truth which makes you right and me wrong.

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Similarly, Einstein's believe in a deterministic underlying world, Newton's believe in Alchemy and God and Plato's believe in Zeus are not automatically brilliant. Every idea is inspected by the scientific community with similar rigor.

Sometimes the scientific community's ideas are not automatically brilliant either.

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In other words, there is no valid argument from authority in science.

Except it's own.

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"That which we call reality arises in the last analysis from the posing of yes–no questions and the registering of equipment-evoked responses; in short, that all things physical are information-theoretic in origin and that this is a participatory universe."- John Archibald Wheeler

There are many more bacteria cells than human cells in our bodies.Quorum sensing = bioluminescenceBacteria communicate and have collective behaviorNext generation of antibiotics will likely be anti-quorum sensing molecules

My interpretations:Quorum sensing behavior show that qualitative cooperation is indeed a fundamental principle at the simplest level of organic life. It is molecular.

The fact that this principle is implicated in bioluminescence may or may not directly relate to QC in illumination (replacing external photons) but it does provide an example which could have evolved from a similar behavior of atoms themselves.

Whether the photon is a mathematical construct of observed material behaviors or whether it is an actual material phenomenon only matters because the material photon suggests a 'dumb' cosmos of non-sense reactions while the idea of quorum sensing or qualitative cooperating atoms may not require a subatomic agent.

The fact that this understanding of how bacteria use is the same enzyme and same molecule for interspecies communication is turning out to be critically important for developing replacements for our bacteria-killing resistance-selecting treatments is a clue to how the recognition of subjective perspectives in the Cosmos can actually have significant practical consequences.

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"That which we call reality arises in the last analysis from the posing of yes–no questions and the registering of equipment-evoked responses; in short, that all things physical are information-theoretic in origin and that this is a participatory universe."- John Archibald Wheeler

My interpretations:Quorum sensing behavior show that qualitative cooperation is indeed a fundamental principle at the simplest level of organic life. It is molecular.

Bullshit. The fact that it is a common evolutionary adaptation does not suggest anything about what is going on at the molecular level.

The research shows that communication mechanism requires oligopeptides, N-Acyl Homoserine Lactones, or similar chemicals physically moving from one cell to another. There is no evidence of any magical sensing of one atom by another.

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If we are honest—and scientists have to be—we must admit that religion is a jumble of false assertions, with no basis in reality. — Paul Dirac

Bullshit. The fact that it is a common evolutionary adaptation does not suggest anything about what is going on at the molecular level.

Being a common adaptation is not what I'm talking about - being a fundamental, as in low level, simple, and critically important to basic functionality is what I'm talking about. It may not suggest anything to you about what is going on at the molecular level, but it certainly does to me. It suggests that the principles of shared subjectivity and collective, coordinated, cooperative behavior are expressed at the level of organic chemistry.

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The research shows that communication mechanism requires oligopeptides, N-Acyl Homoserine Lactones, or similar chemicals physically moving from one cell to another. There is no evidence of any magical sensing of one atom by another.

Moving to another cell doesn't do anything if the atoms which make up the molecules which make up the cell don't sense/detect/respond to that chemical. It's not magic, it's just the way the universe works. It makes sense. Cellular properties/sense emerges from molecular-atomic properties/sense. Where else would they come from?

You're right though, there is a chemical mechanism involving molecules physically traveling from one cell to another. I didn't say that atoms are the same as cells. Cells are orders of magnitude more complex, and they rely upon more complex physical arrangements to maintain their integrity - but they are still also nothing but large groups of atoms. Just because large groups of atoms require smaller groups to communicate doesn't mean that smaller groups require even smaller particle/waves to have an effect on each other. The effect on our observation of it is a wave or a particle, but the thing itself need not be anything but a shared experience.

I don't think that it's possible to determine whether or not photons exist independently from the physical nature of our instruments, but it doesn't really matter, because either way the behavior of atoms, at least when they are sufficiently numbered to the level of rudimentary biology, exhibit an unmistakable potential for subjectivity and cooperation. We don't have to imagine that intelligence and creativity are some orphaned mutation of homo sapiens, but rather they are entirely consistent with the properties of simpler phenomena.

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"That which we call reality arises in the last analysis from the posing of yes–no questions and the registering of equipment-evoked responses; in short, that all things physical are information-theoretic in origin and that this is a participatory universe."- John Archibald Wheeler

It may not suggest anything to you about what is going on at the molecular level, but it certainly does to me. It suggests that the principles of shared subjectivity and collective, coordinated, cooperative behavior are expressed at the level of organic chemistry.

Empedocles may have been a great guy, but his scientific theories are a bit dated. We no longer assume that because a property is observed in a particular thing that it's constituent parts must also share that property.

We have observed collective behavior on the level of a single cell organisms. There is no reason to assume that this implies collective behavior in the underlying organic chemistry.

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If we are honest—and scientists have to be—we must admit that religion is a jumble of false assertions, with no basis in reality. — Paul Dirac

There is no reason to assume that this implies collective behavior in the underlying organic chemistry.

Fair enough, but it does imply that there is every reason to explore hypotheses based on that possibility.

I think that it's just as much of an assumption to model light after our observations of objects at the classical mechanical level. There is no reason to assume that sense is a particle or that photons are anything other than the sense that atoms make.

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"That which we call reality arises in the last analysis from the posing of yes–no questions and the registering of equipment-evoked responses; in short, that all things physical are information-theoretic in origin and that this is a participatory universe."- John Archibald Wheeler

There is no reason to assume that sense is a particle or that photons are anything other than the sense that atoms make.

I've already given you plenty of good reasons to assume that the QM model of the photon is correct, and that your idea is wrong. But, there are plenty more reasons...

Take, for example, the Kapitza-Dirac effect. Back in 1933 it was predicted that a standing wave of light could diffract a collimated particle beam. In 2001, with the advent of powerful lasers, we were able to directly observe the diffraction of an electron beam. Once again, this was predicted based on the properties of particles as suggested by QM. Without those properties it would be a truly amazing coincidence that your magical sensing particles decided to mimic a diffraction grating in this particular circumstance.

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If we are honest—and scientists have to be—we must admit that religion is a jumble of false assertions, with no basis in reality. — Paul Dirac

I think that the existence of questions like whether or not we see light from a steak or a steak itself hints at the unsatisfactory nature of the 'flying substance' model of light. What we see is a presentation of our awareness of the streak. It's visual consciousness which can be modeled and measured externally as electromagnetism, internally as subjective associations with steak.

“Science is the belief in the ignorance of the experts” - Richard Feynman

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"That which we call reality arises in the last analysis from the posing of yes–no questions and the registering of equipment-evoked responses; in short, that all things physical are information-theoretic in origin and that this is a participatory universe."- John Archibald Wheeler

I've already given you plenty of good reasons to assume that the QM model of the photon is correct, and that your idea is wrong. But, there are plenty more reasons...

There is no example I have heard of anything which has been observed by anything other than instruments made of atoms and human consciousness interpreting observations of those instruments.

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Take, for example, the Kapitza-Dirac effect. Back in 1933 it was predicted that a standing wave of light could diffract a collimated particle beam.

So what? The diffraction still happens in the same way if there is a wave-effect of whatever you are using to measure.

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In 2001, with the advent of powerful lasers, we were able to directly observe the diffraction of an electron beam.

Again, the observation is the same whether it's really an electron beam or a behavior of whatever you are using to observe it. There is no unmediated observation of anything - it's all run through human nervous systems made of matter performing experiments using equipment made of matter. If you start out with the unquestioned assumption of an electron beam, your experiment can only reaffirm that assumption.

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Once again, this was predicted based on the properties of particles as suggested by QM. Without those properties it would be a truly amazing coincidence that your magical sensing particles decided to mimic a diffraction grating in this particular circumstance.

It's not a coincidence, it's just how matter defines itself through timespace. Of course it's orderly. What I think you are missing is that these phenomena don't mimic anything, they are primary. Everything else is composed of them and mimics or elaborates upon aspects of them.

The predictions based on QM's exterior-only models are obviously useful and correct, but you aren't seeing that my model doesn't compete with or impair that in any way. I'm just taking out the inferred reality that doesn't make sense to me (intangible, entangled particle-waves) and replacing it with a plausible dynamic that has low-level precedent in the natural world (sense and cooperation). It generates the exact same patterns which we associate with other physical phenomena such as particles or waves but there isn't anything external agent there 'making' the pattern happen. It's cooperative. The pattern = the thing.

All I'm saying is that I think it's possible that photons aren't physical phenomena, they are the behaviors of physical phenomena. If you shine a flashlight on a wall and your eye, optic nerve, and brain get illuminated by the light and also illuminated by the wall being illuminated by the light. It's three separate things happening, not because there are beams flying around the room but because the mathematical relation between the three events and the qualitative character of them (color of light, intensity, focus, shape, etc) interact in a way that we can understand as being beams, particles, or waves when in fact these things are impossible to directly observe in a vacuum. Until we can actually query a vacuum without touching it materially, we cannot say that we have observed a photon.

If you are thinking that there is a way to physically disprove this using instruments which are made of matter, then you aren't understanding what I'm talking about. On this level of physical existence, instruments can only measure themselves and each other.

« Last Edit: August 12, 2010, 03:05:58 PM by Immediacracy »

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"That which we call reality arises in the last analysis from the posing of yes–no questions and the registering of equipment-evoked responses; in short, that all things physical are information-theoretic in origin and that this is a participatory universe."- John Archibald Wheeler

It's not necessarily eternally unprovable or unfalsifiable, any more than consciousness itself is unprovable or unfalsifiable. There may very well be experiments to be done but they would have to rely on means other than just mechanical objects. I could imagine that augmenting the brain with an extended visual cortex could tell us more about the nature of light.

Even something as simple as conducting two slit experiments head on into the observer's eye might reveal something interesting if it was scaled to the right size. What does the multi-slit interference band look like if it's completely focused inside your eye? Different from a single slit flare? What if it's natural sunlight instead of a laser? What if the person is half asleep or highly agitated? Lots of things that might be worth trying when we take the pattern recognition side of the pattern equation more seriously.

Science doesn't have to be about everything else except us. Our first hand experience is part of the universe too.

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"That which we call reality arises in the last analysis from the posing of yes–no questions and the registering of equipment-evoked responses; in short, that all things physical are information-theoretic in origin and that this is a participatory universe."- John Archibald Wheeler